Page 25 of Duke of Moonstone
The memory of her voice, shaking just enough for him to hear it, landed somewhere behind his ribs where it had no business being.
He reached the doorway to the breakfast room and stopped.
The Duchess was already seated at the table. She was spreading cream cheese on a scone, her hair was pinned neatly, and herpale blue morning dress was in place. She was sitting in his breakfast room as if she had been there for years, and he was the one arriving late for something.
She looked up.
Their eyes met across the length of the table, and the effect of it ran through him like a hand pressed to his chest. Her gaze held his for a moment—clear, blue, completely unreadable—and then she looked down and continued spreading cream cheese on her scone.
She did not greet him. She did not acknowledge him. She simply returned to her breakfast as though the doorway were empty.
Alexander stood there for a beat longer than was dignified, and then he walked to his chair and sat.
“Good morning,” he said.
“Good morning.” She did not look up.
He gestured to the footman for coffee, observed it being served, then picked up his cup and took a sip. The silence between them was tense with sharp edges.
She asked me to come to breakfast. She specifically asked me to come to breakfast, and now, she is pretending I am part of the furniture.
He set down his cup. “You slept well, I trust.”
“Adequately.” She took a bite of her scone, chewed, and swallowed. Her posture was flawless. “And you?”
“Well enough.”
“How pleasant for you.”
The footman placed a plate of eggs and toast in front of him and stepped back with the professional invisibility of someone who had judged the atmospheric conditions and decided that maintaining distance was wise.
Alexander focused on his breakfast as did the Duchess. Several minutes went by, during which only the clinking of cutlery and the ticking of the clock could be heard. Alexander realized this was not the conversation she had called him for and that she was making him wait intentionally. He knew he was letting it bother him which meant she was succeeding.
He took a breath.
“You wished to speak to me,” he said. “I believe that was the purpose of this breakfast.”
She set down her knife. “I did. Have you heard anything of Eleanor?”
The name landed on the table between them as if something had been dropped.
Alexander’s jaw tightened. “I do not wish to discuss Eleanor.”
“She is my friend.”
“And she is my sister, and I do not wish to discuss her.”
“Has Mr. Holt sent word? Is she safe, at least?”
“I said I do not wish to discuss her.” He kept his voice even. Perfectly even. “She made her choice. She is living with the consequences. That is the end of the matter.”
The Duchess looked at him across the table. Her eyes were very blue and entirely too perceptive for half past nine in the morning. “She made her choice because she was in love.”
“She made her choice because she was reckless.”
“Is there no room in your mind for both?”
“When recklessness leads a woman to elope with a schoolmaster in the middle of the night, abandoning her family and her reputation and every advantage her birth afforded her, no. There is no space for such actions.”
